Justice Department probes Visa's relationships with fintech companies

$Visa (V.US)$ $Block (SQ.US)$ $PayPal (PYPL.US)$ The U.S. Justice Department is probing Visa Inc's (V.N) relationships with large fintech companies as part of its antitrust investigation of the card giant.

Antitrust investigators are looking into the financial incentives that Visa gave Square Inc (SQ.N), Stripe Inc and Paypal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O), the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Visa, which reported its quarterly results on Tuesday, declined to comment.

The company said earlier in March the Justice Department was looking at its debit practices after reports that the United States was investigating whether Visa uses anti-competitive practices in the debit-card market. read more

The Justice Department had previously investigated the credit card payments industry but settled with Visa and Mastercard Inc (MA.N) in 2010 when they agreed to allow merchants to offer consumers incentives to use a low-cost credit card.

Thoughts on this news? Possibly why V has tanked further today after its earnings?